Hasan Kalyoncu Üniversitesi - KaLMIREC Migration Research Center
Havalimanı Yolu Üzeri, 8. km, Şahinbey Belediyesi
27410 Oğuzeli/Gaziantep/Gaziantep
Turkey
- Research
Hasan Kalyoncu University (HKU) was established as a foundation university in 2008 and started education in the 2011-2012 academic year in Gaziantep. HKU is one of the leading universities in the South-East Region of Turkey on the border of Syria and Irak. HKU counts with 292 teaching staff, from which 51 are instructors, 18 associate professor, 70 research assistant, 69 professor, 9 foreign academician and 75 Doctor Faculty members. HKU has 16 associate degree programs, 66 undergraduate programs, 45 Master´s Degree, 13 PhD programm. Number of students over 7000, of which 538 belong to associate degree, 5963 undergraduate program, 2362 Master´s Degree and 177 within our PhD programm. The university annual budget is approximately 54M dollars. HKU has 7 faculties, 5 colleges and three research institutes and main sources of income is provided by the foundation. The University is an environmentally friendly university that produces its own energy. KHU has the Erasmus+ agreement which allows it to co-lead educational and research projects with universities in europe, such as: Humboldt University, University of Tampere, Universidade da Coruna, Universita degli Studi di Sassari, Radom Academy of Economics, University of Alba Iulia, Interior, Technological Institute of Thessaloniki, University of Ostrava. There are also joint working agreements with many universites around the World, e.g. Notre Dame University - Louaize, A.B.M.S Switzerland, Samara State University of Economics, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Rudgerts, The State University of New Jersey, Purdue University, Paneuropean University Apeiron. Erasmus+ projects, TUBITAK projects, and projects supported by some other international organizations are carried out by various research centers at the university.
Kalyoncu Migration Research Centre (KALMIREC) is part of Hasan Kalyoncu University. The University has periodical scientific publications and training programmes focused on strenghthening Syrian and Turkish migration strategy within the NGO sector together with international organizations, e.g. International Organization for Migration. The KaLMIREC migration research
center provides projects for Syrian refugees. These projects are mostly integration projects. The
Center, which also conducts research projects, has published a book on migration and education
from the eyes of Syrian children in 2019. KaLMIREC produced five migration videos within the framework of the EU project Cross-Borders Intercultural and Societal Entrepreneurs, and provides migration entrepreneur trainings for young people. Participants who have received a certificate of migration entrepreneurs training go to schools and deliver training to the students about social cohesion. KaLMIREC provides trainings to Syrian and Turkish women NGO representatives. These trainings also serve as a networking platform for Syrian and Turkish women NGO members. HKU and KALMIREC apply the main part of its budget on the research topics which are important and priorities for our country, dedicated to effectively using social and science-technological research funds provided by the national (TUBİTAK, other public institutions and private sectors) (TUBİTAK, other public institutions and private sectors) and international bodies, fostering and encouraging its academic staff and students to carry out national/international scientific projects. It delivers post-graduate studies which relates to research projects. It promotes its post-graduate students to take part in research projects in the university, forms the content of the diploma programs and research projects with the contribution of not only its own academic staff but also the academic staff of other universities in Turkey and abroad. It plans its post-graduate programs and research projects with a multi-disciplinary approach bringing the different areas of social sciences (sociology, political science, economics, psychology, etc.) together. It is a university that highlights the importance of international cooperation which establishes dual/joint diploma programs with the prominent international universities in their respective fields, collaborates with international and regional university networks (EUA, IUA, AAU, etc.), provides grounds for academic staff of foreign universities to lecture and supervise students online, promotes foreign academic staff to lecture in diploma programs as much as possible, provides active contribution and participation in social science research carried out in multi-national entities such as European Union (EU), Council of Europe (CoE), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Organization Islamic Countries (OIC), World Bank (WB), United Nations and UNESCO.
Vision To be an internationally referenced center for migration by conducting research on migration nationally and internationally, producing, sharing, organizing activities that will benefit humanity, and contribute to social peace.
Mission Following migration movements in Turkey and around the world; to conduct researches, prepare projects, carry out and prepare reports, share the results obtained with seminars, conferences, etc. with policy makers and those involved.
KaLMERIC studies migration using action learning and action research methods (participatory observation) in particular and application using training programmes for the trainers as the seminars, workshops, exhibition and conferences. At the moment, the center works mainly with the Syrian refugee issue especially using participatory observation methods and towards building a self-entrepreneurship culture and mind-set amond Syrian refugees. Besides observation, we supply training to our partner organisations, such as SPARK in participation and social entrepreneurship training modules and who are also working with refugees. This training mainly consists of ‘train the trainer’ programmes. We also have established a voluntary group helping Syrian refugees by providing them shelter, food, goods and supporting them for education, health services and finding jobs. At the same time, we provide the train the trainer programme for the volunteers in our group and the training programmes to empower Syrians to rebuild their country when they return after the war. We set our education programmes with a dialogical approach and intercultural methodology. Additionally, we use the participant-centered training method. We are very keen on to apply equal learning system from classroom design to the using of the learning materials, in every phase of our work. Besides, our own training programmes in the university, we also provide education to our partner organisations. Our activities comprise producing educational materials on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) for pilot schools, increasing the basic skills and knowledge of Turkish Ministry of National Education (MoNE) personnel and concerned groups through awareness-raising and training activities, to developing and revising legislation and curricula on EDC/HRE in primary and secondary education and promoting a democratic school culture, the project aims to foster a more democratic society by strengthening democratic citizenship and human rights education. HKU -Kalmirec was a partner from 2016 to 2019 of the EU GOOD PRACTICE Erasmus+ project “Cross-border intercultural and societal entrepreneurs”, which codesigned with parnters from Spain, Sweden and the UK a curriculum, competences and social micro indicators. Also a w/app group was started where key leaders of charity organizations in Gaziantep share information about entrepreneurship issues.
HKU - KaLMERIC commitment towards intercultural, social entrepreneurial mind-set will attract young people who are interested in making a real change to their community daily lives as social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs for a common good. KaLMERIC staff, researchers, mentors and associates will be offering their experience to scale up and scale out the outreach and impact of the Network activities enriched by our research approach focused on dialogical and participatory action-research. Our current comitment towards the migration community with the International Organization of Migration and Ministry of Youth gives us an international and national platform to make visible and place key public and private organizations of the region of Gaziantep working steadily and hard to bring the migration agenda within high level policy arena. KaLMIREC would bring experience working also with Syrian migrants with physical and mental disabled people.
We are very interested to exchange experiences, learn and enrich our programs on youth empowerment, advocacy, business design, participatory budgeting, legal structures, planning , report design, mentorship, pitching strategies with the richness of the intercultural competences of the ALF network. We would like to make visible and bring to the center of policy making what happens locally and peripherically, as we are placed at the border with Syria. ALF network offers a broad and rich field for action research with potential co publishing efforts.
